UN declares famine in Gaza

The United Nations (UN) on Friday, August 22, 2025, declared a famine in Gaza, the first in the Middle East, with its experts saying 500,000 people were facing “catastrophic” hunger.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system said 514,000 people – nearly a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza – are experiencing famine, with the number due to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.

Some 280,000 of those people are in a northern region covering Gaza City – known as Gaza governorate – which the IPC said was in famine following nearly two years of war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.

It was the first time the IPC had recorded famine outside of Africa, and the global group predicted that famine conditions would spread to the central and southern areas of Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

It added that the situation further north could be even worse than in Gaza City, but said limited data prevented any precise classification.

Israel dismissed the report as false and biased, saying the IPC had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food.

“There is no famine in Gaza,” the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

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For a region to be classified as in famine, at least 20% of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

Previously, the IPC has only registered famines in Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan.

Even if a region has not yet been classified as in famine because those thresholds have not been met, the IPC can determine that households there are suffering famine conditions, which it describes as starvation, destitution and death.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that the Gaza famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.

He called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages still held by Hamas and unfettered humanitarian access.

“People are starving. Children are dying. And those with the duty to act are failing. We cannot allow this situation to continue with impunity,” Reuters quoted Guterres as saying.

Israel controls all access to Gaza. COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows, said the IPC report ignored Israeli data on aid deliveries and was part of an international campaign aimed at denigrating Israel.

The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

The United States, Qatar, and Egypt have been trying to broker an end to the conflict.

The Star